


to be without you one more night

by Chogisad



Category: Cody Ko - Fandom, Noel Miller - Fandom, Tiny Meat Gang (Band)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Loss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:06:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22489120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chogisad/pseuds/Chogisad
Summary: "Noel, I need to go now, okay?" Cody says, so quiet, so finalizing, that Noel feels breathless.
Relationships: Cody Ko & Noel Miller, Cody Ko/Noel Miller
Comments: 19
Kudos: 131





	to be without you one more night

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Cody and Noel are real people with agency over their own lives. This is purely a work of fiction and any association to their character/person is done under creative license, with no intention of it reflecting upon them in real life.

The phone vibrates under him. It tickles his ribs and Noel considers ignoring it. The room sits dark and his head is still throbbing, his bloodstream still running with wine and champagne and the bad decisions of a new year.

Noel groans as his hands rummage over the folds of the blanket. He opens and closes his mouth, tasting the dryness, the heaviness. The light from the screen is almost blinding as Noel brings it up to his eyes. He squints, registering the time before he registers the Caller ID.

 _4:11 AM_.

 _Cody Ko_.

"Cody?" Noel's voice is groggy.

"Hey," Cody replies. He sounds so far away, forlorn, and just from the one syllable, Noel's heart recognizes the unease. He's gotten used to this part-- the knowing, the understanding, the way _getting_ Cody has settled into his bones.

"Its 4 AM. What's going on, man?" Noel tries, feeling like he has to whisper in the dark, like this moment is one more secret they have to share just between the two of them. Noel sits up; he's trying to understand this a little better. The cold room beckons him back to bed but this silence is lasting, a peculiar break between them, and Noel isn't sure who's supposed to go next.

"I just wanted to hear your voice," Cody says gently, and Noel swallows. Something in his stomach churns, makes his heartbeat almost painful. He wonders where this is coming from, if Cody's been drinking again, if he's been doing something more reckless than drinking again.

"Well, I'm here dude. What's up?" Noel says, keeping quiet.

"I wanted to say happy new year," Cody replies, his voice light, and Noel can almost imagine the small smile on his face, the little turn of his lips. Noel wants to pretend this is normal, that this happens, but Cody sounds withdrawn, farther away than any distance could really explain.

"Happy new year, man. Where are you?" Noel checks the time again, wants to make sure. The unease lingers; it settles oddly on his skin. He has brief flashes of the party, the music and the dancing, and Cody's declined invitation before any of it started.

"I-- you know," Cody laughs faintly. "I went for a walk and then just kept going, wandered around for a bit."

"Yeah?" Noel tries, and he waits for Cody to explain. Noel's gotten used to this part too-- the interlude, the way he sometimes has to hold his breath. It's always been about patience, about neither of them ever being very good with words.

"I kept thinking about this past year-- the tour, the podcast, everything really." Cody says, and Noel knows what unfamiliar territory feels like. Cody chokes on the words and Noel can hear his shaky breathing, his tendency to open up his own wounds.

Noel tries to fill the empty space, tries to come up with a reasonable estimate of how many times he'll be able to catch Cody before he hits the ground. Noel thinks back to all of the moments just like this, all of the moments Cody's laughter fell short.

They were on tour one night, exhausted and aggravated, both feeling like everything was falling apart. The crew couldn't get the cues right, the lighting was too dull, and the microphones werent able to pick up what they were trying to say between the lines. They'd laid down in the tour bus, defeated, both wondering if this would end before it even started.

The moment had settled, held them both in a pensive quiet as their thoughts spiraled away from them. Noel remembers how the lump in his throat had grown, how he tried to stifle his disappointment by breathing through his nose.

Cody had let his hand hang off the side of the bunk bed and Noel could hear his shallow breathing, the small indication of their shared dismay. As the anxiety ate away at the both of them, Noel didn't think about it really; he simply reached up to intertwine their fingers.

It was simple. Sure, too intimate, and too vulnerable, but neither of them had the energy to care too much about boundaries. They both understood this part, the one where they didn't want to be coddled, but didn't want to be abandoned either. Cody didn't flinch at the contact. He only squeezed back harder. This was the difficult part of their relationship, the part where they kept each other grounded without uttering a single word.

But something about this feels a little different, more uncertain. Noel can’t really describe it, the hesitation, the heaviness of Cody's tone. It feels like they can't joke their way through this; they can't sugarcoat this enough to swallow.

"I just-- I kept thinking. You and me-- we really got to take on the world this year, huh? We really got to do things that some people only dream of." Cody gushes. Nostalgia stirs in the pit of his stomach and Noel only nods, as if Cody could see their shared amazement. He's still tired, still fighting the warmth of his bed trying to lull him back to sleep.

"This year was a little crazy," Noel admits. The events of the night are catching up to him, all whirlwind of drinks and music and confetti. He's exhausted and still a little drunk but he feels like this is one of those moments that will matter, one they may want to talk about one day when they're both sober and ready to say something of significance.

His phone vibrates in warning; 5% battery remaining. Noel almost mentions this, almost cuts Cody off, but he doesn't. He's never been able to.

"Hey-- I--" Cody stumbles over his words and Noel's heart goes a little irregular. It clenches, beats, clenches again. Noel is tempted to bring his hand to his chest, to try and sooth it back to its regular rhythim.

"Yeah?"

"I love you, Noel." Cody says, and Noel closes his eyes, even in the dark. "You know that right?"

"Of course I do, man." He says, blushing in spite of the honesty. "I love you too, Cody."

He knows _love_ is an injustice to them, an understatement. Cody once joked they might've been soulmates; two tech guys with the same shit-faced sense of humor who just ended up at the same firm, ended up sitting at the same table, ended up making music and laughter to take the world a little less seriously.

How could Noel not know?

"I-- I just wanted to say that before--" Cody stops, takes a breath. "Before the year ends, you know. I'm a few hours late, I guess." He laughs again, the same forced, almost hallow laughter that makes Noel shudder in the dark.

"Cody--" Noel starts, and maybe Cody hears it, the natural way Noel knows when its time to start worrying.

"Anyway," Cody cuts him off, but this time, his voice changes, gets a little more delicate, a little more gentle.

"Noel, I need to go now, okay?" Cody says, so quiet, so finalizing, that Noel feels breathless.

"O-Okay," Noel stammers, even though instinct rakes its nails into the air, tries to slow this moment. There is something important to say here, something hanging over the both of them like dead fruit, but Noel's gotten used to this part too, the unsaid. How many times has Noel swallowed his words? How many times has he let the silence eat them whole? The moment stills, for only a millisecond, and in the space between two heartbeats, disappears just as quickly.

"Okay, Cody. Get some sleep, yeah dude?" Noel says, almost defeated. Cody only laughs, a bit lighter now, and Noel wonders what joke he's missing out on.

" _Goodnight, Noel_."

"Goodnight, man."

Noel ends the call. He stares at the phone for one second, maybe two, before it dies in his hand. He wishes he was more awake. He wishes he had more resolve, but this night has been too heavy, too relentless, so Noel goes back to sleep. He'll call in the morning.

Because Noel understands Cody, his ticks and his symptoms, and this is something they'll talk about tomorrow. They'll fidget. They'll dance around the vulnerability, joking and gagging on their own inability to face confrontation, but they'll get to it. Nervous and awkward, they'll get to it, like they've done so many times before.

When Noel gets the news a few hours later he swears the world shatters from beneath him.

He stops breathing; he drops his phone on the concrete sidewalk and barely registers the crack of the glass.

He thinks his heart stops beating right there and then. People bump into his immobile frame, and Noel loses his footing. Toppled, tree in the middle of the forest, nothing makes a sound as he collapses, as his delicate skin rakes over the shrapnel pavement. Its an unbecoming that sears him, that tears his lungs and his ribcage open like an eagle-spread monolith of new age devastation and he wishes he could be trampled right there on that sidewalk. To feel pain like this, to feel something hurt quite like this-- Noel thinks he will lose himself because of it.

Cody never made it to the new year.

The drunk driver that mounted the sidewalk called the ambulance too late, it came too slow, and just like that, everything was over. Cody's heart stopped beating by the time they lifted him off the concrete.

Time of Death: 11:52 PM.

Time of Death: 11:52 PM.

Time of Death: 11:52 PM.

Noel checks his phone, over and over and over but finds no trace of a phone call on New Year's Day. He's consumed by the nightmare, by the fever dream he's still stuck in. He knocks his knuckles against hard surfaces, keeps trying to prove they're only illusions around him, that this isn't really happening. He feels like the fog will fall at any moment, like he'll wake up at any second to a world where he hasn't lost everything.

The following days only blur together.

After the police reports and the autopsy, after the mourning and the eulogies, Noel doesn't say anything to anyone. The colors drip from the walls and the ceilings. People start whispering to ask each other if he's catatonic when they think he's out of earshot. Noel wants to be selfish about his grief, wants to hoard it inside of his heart until it shocks him back into reality.

The memory of Cody's voice at four in the morning sits in the back of his mind like a weight, like a ghost, like a ghastly reminder that Noel might not be standing on solid ground.

He retrieves his phone records from his cell company. They only confirm the unimaginable.

The silence almost suffocates him on some nights. It swells, fills every corner and crevice and then bludgeons against his ribs, demanding to be felt, acknowledged. Its monstrous, the mourning, and he wants to be the only person devoured by it.

Noel keeps calling Cody's number, already numb with the effort of keeping one more secret between them. He doesn't cry, not even now. He simply listens for the drone of the dial tone, hands shaking, jaw clenched so tight he could swear his bones will shatter.

" _Hello! You've reached Cody!"_

Noel dials again, thinks it might be muscle memory _._ Quick, sharp breaths puncture the still air as he waits, and waits, and waits. Faithful or faithless; he doesn't understand the difference anymore. On some nights, Noel forgets to breath altogether.

_"Hello! You've reached Cody!"_

Noel wants to scream every single time. Its almost feral, the desolation that rips him from the inside out, pulls his vocal cords taut when the phone beeps in greeting.

_"Leave a message and I'll get back to you!"_

Noel always falls silent instead. He feels like he swallowed cotton and he's still trying to spit it out. The truth clogs his mouth; it tastes like a bitter, awful reminder. Cody's name is a hard-to-swallow pill on his tongue and Noel doesn't understand any of it. He could never grow accustomed to any of it.

The length of his apartment stales with week-old air. Doors locked, curtains drawn, world kept abate, Noel dials the familiar number one more time. He wonders if this is madness incarnate, to expect something different each time. The line rings, sends cold dread coursing down his spine, and he swallows the urge to vomit, to spill all of this anguish onto his lap until he's finally empty, fully empty.

Cody's voice welcomes him, beckons him to leave a message. Its unfair really, to still have parts of him, to be stuck in this perpetual haunting. Noel knows he's at fault too, for ceding his peace, for still bringing offerings.

The call goes to voicemail and Noel hates Cody for this, for always making promises he cant fucking keep.

_I'll get back to you. I'll get back to you. I'll get back to you._

"Cody--" Noel chokes on the syllables. Its as if his chest is contracting around _his_ name, refusing to let go, willing to suffocate him with the effort of it. His resolve collapses and the blood is so thick in his ears Noel swears he sees his own heart pulsing. It’s a sickness, the bitterness that remains like a totem when the sum of everything else washes away.

" _Fuck you,_ man." Noel spits out, lungs shrill with the pressure of a threatened implosion as he refuses to cry. Not now. Not yet. Noel is shaking, biting down on his own lip until he tastes copper blood, and he focuses on that pain instead, but its not enough anymore because the inevitable has come to fruition.

Like before, like so many times before, no one answers on the other end of the line and just like that, Noel is broken all over again.

The first sob gets caught in his throat and it comes out wet. It comes out strangled. Its torturous, to watch an impending wave finally hit and fracture the hull of a boat. Noel cracks and he howls into the emptiness of his life, into the void now uninhabited in his heart. He splinters into thousands of pieces that all go adrift as the reality of this submerges him.

_Time of Death: 11:52 PM._

Noel is drowning. His vision clouds and he chokes on his grief, on the memories now flooding between the spaces of his ribs.

_Cody brings him balloons and coffee creamer on his birthday. Noel blushes and Cody only grins. Its an inside joke. Its an inside joke. Its an inside joke, he keeps repeating._

Noel, desperate, burning, paws at his chest as if he could claw out the source of his distress.

_Cody laughs so hard he almost vomits on their new mic equipment, and Noel cant remember the last time he was this happy._

Noel taps at his cell phone with so much force, the edges of the screen's cracks cut his finger.

_Cody wraps his arms around Noel and all they can do is smile. We made it, Cody murmurs, as they both take in the cheers and hollers from the other side of the curtain._

Already bloodied, Noel hurls his cellphone across the room and watches it shatter against the wall.

_I love you, Noel. You know that right?_

Noel must've dreamed this part, imagined it, so the memory of it only hits harder, only cuts him deeper.

_Noel, I need to go now, okay?_

Noel doesn’t want to feel this anymore. He doesn’t want any of this anymore.

_Time of Death: 11:52 PM._

Noel screams into his empty room. Defeated, exhausted, vacant, he collapses onto the floor.

" _I didn’t want you to go,_ " Noel whispers, his voice hoarse, the words broken. He whispers it to the air, to no one, to the memory of a ghost that will keep it as one more secret between them.

He has a smear of blood on his sweater that he doesn't notice. The city outside of his apartment moves on without him, _without them,_ and Noel knows nobody could ever understand loss like this, to have so much inside of them and still be empty.

The darkness threatens to swallow him whole and never spit him back out. Noel stops floundering; he stops treading deep water. He takes a breath, feels the numbness spread from his fingers to the rest of his body-- maybe in another life he would've broken his own wrists to stop it. Not now. Not today. Because that numbness is lulling him to sleep, to silence, to a place where none of this will matter.

His phone vibrates from across the room. Even from here, even now, Noel registers the time before he registers the Caller ID.

 _4:11 AM_.

 _Cody Ko_.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! You can find me on tumblr @sugar--what--bro.


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